主题：Agent-based Virtual Humans in Co-Space

时间：12月8日（周六）16:00—17:30

地点：科技楼13楼国家高性能计算中心深圳分中心会议室

主讲：Prof.Tan

Co-Space refers to the co-existence of an interactive virtual environment with the real world we reside in. Through realistic 3D modelling and animation technologies, virtual world may simulate the real world in terms of look-and-feel of our physical surrounding. With the advancement in pervasive sensor network, the happenings in the physical world may also be captured and mirrored in virtual world in real time. The development of Co-Space thus offers great opportunities for delivering innovative applications and services. Specifically, for enriching the experience of users in Co-Space, we propose to incorporate knowledge facilities in the form of autonomous human-like agents to enhance the interactivity and playability within. This talk will begin with a brief review of this emerging field of work related to autonomous agents in virtual worlds. We then discuss the key requirement, issues and challenges in designing autonomous virtual humans. Following the notion of embodied intelligence, we present cognitive agents, based on a family of self-organizing neural models, known as fusion Adaptive Resonance Theory (fusion ART). Our ultimate aim is to have such agents roaming freely in the landscape of Co-Space, developing an awareness of their surrounding and interacting with other agents and avatars of real humans. As an illustration, a case study of our effort in building autonomous virtual humans in the NTU Co-Space will be presented.

Speaker’s Biography

Ah-Hwee Tan received a Ph.D. in Cognitive and Neural Systems from Boston University, a Bachelor of Science (First Class Honors) and a Master of Science in Computer and Information Science from the National University of Singapore. He is currently an Associate Professor and the Head of Division of Software and Information Systems at the School of Computer Engineering (SCE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Prior to joining NTU, he was a Research Manager at the A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), spearheading the Text Mining and Intelligent Agents research programmes. His current research interests include human-centric computing, brain-inspired intelligent agents, cognitive and neural systems, machine learning, knowledge discovery and text mining. He has published more than 120 technical papers in international journals and conferences. He holds six patents and has championed several A*Star projects in developing and commercializing a suite of document analysis and text mining technologies. His research has been supported by grants from major agencies, including National Research Foundation (NRF), Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*Star), DSO National Laboratories, andSingapore Technologies.